PRECIPICE
Frühlingsglaube roughly translates to a belief or hope felt because of spring. The title is from a romantic Friedrich Uhland poem of the same name, describing the fleeting beauty of spring and the hope that springs from the changing of the seasons. This work was made while at the Ateliers im Alten Schlachthof artist residence in the Danube Valley during the spring of 2021. I experienced an opening up of human activity after long lockdowns and pandemic restrictions and found the poetry of the region reflecting our current time. The beauty of blossoming trees is ephemeral and is even more beautiful for its fleeting nature. The long dark pandemic winter and the overarching sense of doom led to an even more precious awakening. The use of red and abstract petal or wing forms visually connects to flayed skin, bloody edges, as well as organic floral edges as found on a crepe myrtle or a linden tree. Caught in suspended animation, Frühlingsglaube captures the moment of transformation from life to death.
Sturnus Vulgaris consists of forty European starling feathers cut from artist made paper, pierced through in multiple areas, and embellished with embroidery. The remaining embroidery floss and needle hang from each feather. Colors of blood, umber, dirt, and blush are sewn into each delicate feather. The paper is made from recycled cardboard and U.S. Congressional records from 2016 and is tinted with hues of gray that appear dingy or smoggy. Secured off the wall with needles, the feathers shadows and thread trail into one another and the hanging threads bleed toward the ground. Each feather has been pierced multiple times on a micro scale, small moments of violence that make them more delicate while highlighting the holes like suppurating wounds. Suppurating wounds stubbornly remain open and weeping, much like the legacies of violence wrought on our own bodies, communities, and environment from the intertwined legacy of American industry and manifest destiny.
Event Horizon is a continuation of cast resin and insect sculptures. No longer isolated as seen in Industrial Amber, the groupings of insects are clustered from the center of the composition in a sunburst array. The title references the astrophysics term that describes a boundary beyond which there is no return. Once we pass this boundary, events can no longer affect an observer. We are rapidly approaching the point of no return where our climate and environment are irreversibly damaged by our reliance on fossil fuels. Event Horizon preserves our current biodiversity ironically in a fossil fuel-derived material, presenting our current inability to respond quickly enough to save our own planet.
40 Stumps represent a ghost forest created from handmade paper forms lit from within. Now a distant memory, the vast forests of the Americas were a natural home to many species and biodiversity. 40 Stumps references the destruction of these forests in the past and present due to the impact of the lumber industry on the natural environment. In 2020, we were confronted with apocalyptic images from forest fires that raced across the western United States because of human industry. Climate change compounded with deforestation will lead to further decay of our environment and shared home. This ghost forest comes alive through lights that fade in and out, like the summer choruses of frogs or lightning bugs and are made of a combination of processed industrial materials and natural fibers.
During my time as a StudioWorks resident, I worked with the Institute’s archives to explore local history of the sardine industry and its impact on Eastport’s community using my own old work pants transformed into paper combined with manipulated rust. In Eastport’s industrial seaside landscape, rust underscores material erosion and layers of history while the denim paper represents my past labor. Photographs of the remnants of weirs and piers lingering from the sardine industry in Eastport’s landscape were projected onto papers made from my used work pants (Scars I-X) and drawn in iron paint. The rugged beauty of the Maine seaside is reflected in the various compositions of the large scale denim papers. All of the various shades of blue arose from the different pairs of pants. After the metal paint dried, I encouraged the iron to rust. The final works reflect the layering of time, art, and industry on our understanding of an environment.
Industrial Amber consists of 40 sap-like pustules containing a variety of insect life protruding or seeping from the gallery wall. The insects and other creatures suspended in amber-tinted resin came from the artist’s collection of bugs gathered from her home and studio, supplemented by a collection of bugs bartered from a friend. The variety of insects displayed is a record of the biodiversity of our planet that is fading during our planet’s current mass extinction of natural life. It could also represent individuals gathered, yet isolated--similar to pandemic bubbles. Each sap pustule looks as if it were a perfectly clear, fossilized piece of amber. Real amber is made of remnants of resin produced by now extinct coniferous trees. Recreating amber using resin encapsulates the industrial impact of our current actions on the environment and references the yellow pine that fueled the Southern timber industry. The resin transforms the insect carcasses into something precious and alluring that seep from the wall into the viewer’s space.
Working Impact is a series of 20 unique laser etched woodblock prints made from archival imagery depicting the lumber industry at the turn of the 20th century and the surrounding town’s community from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art photo archives in Laurel, MS. The chosen images show the diversity of the community through time and the impact of workers on the environment and economics. Multiple histories of labor are shown in the resulting prints. Labor performed by the artist, by the home builder, by the lumber men, by the cook, by the family, by the wood miller, by the salvage man, by the teachers, by the historians, by the photographers, by the mothers, by the archivists, are all brought together into this series including researched texts and archival imagery specific to this former lumber town in Mississippi.
Selected poems by romantic writers who lived in the Donautal (the same area as the Schlachthof) and English language writers on the topic of spring are combined with flowers and sculptural imagery from the artist’s other works in the exhibition using silk screening. The consistent topic of spring connects through all the poems, some more laudatory and others critical. The insects reappear in repeated patterns. Displayed in a ray of clothesline, the handkerchiefs flutter in the breeze and are transparent front to back and visible through one another. Connected through a similar theme, the floral imagery is made from capturing the shadows of the flowers around Sigmaringen, Germany and edited to be mirrors or silhouettes. The domesticity of the materials and display present the similar disappointments and beauty of spring throughout time and space.